Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but flawed
Review: The concept is interesting, but I have to say that the recipes could have used a bit more testing and/or proofreading. Almost everyone I've tried has been delicious (5 good to 1 bad), almost all have needed some tweaking in quantities.
The strawberry soup with champagne ice is fantastic, but makes more than twice as much ice as is needed.
The Italian Sausage with Lager Sauce and Apple Bouillon is delicious, but the Lager Sauce has the same consistency as the Bouillon (next time I'll be drastically reducing the amount of lager in the sauce).
One recipe description talks about how the flavor of the almonds interact with the other ingredients but there are no almonds in the recipe!
None of these problems are insurmountable, and I love the complexity of flavor that he layers into the dishes, but a little more testing would have removed a fair amount of frustration.But it was really worth the price just for that strawberry soup...
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but flawed
Review: The concept is interesting, but I have to say that the recipes could have used a bit more testing and/or proofreading. Almost everyone I've tried has been delicious (5 good to 1 bad), almost all have needed some tweaking in quantities.
The strawberry soup with champagne ice is fantastic, but makes more than twice as much ice as is needed.
The Italian Sausage with Lager Sauce and Apple Bouillon is delicious, but the Lager Sauce has the same consistency as the Bouillon (next time I'll be drastically reducing the amount of lager in the sauce).
One recipe description talks about how the flavor of the almonds interact with the other ingredients but there are no almonds in the recipe!
None of these problems are insurmountable, and I love the complexity of flavor that he layers into the dishes, but a little more testing would have removed a fair amount of frustration. But it was really worth the price just for that strawberry soup...
Rating:
Summary: Shares a thought-provoking approach to creating flavors.
Review: There have not been many books that have thoughtfully approached the subject of creating flavors. Dornenburg and Page's Culinary Artistry (published in 1996) is an extraordinary book on this topic, but The Elements of Taste by Kunz and Kaminsky is a welcome and thought-provoking addition to the few available books in this genre. One can only hope there will be more to come!
Rating: 
Summary: Great Concept
Review: What a great time to be buying cookbooks! While we have for a long while had access to recipe collections and representations of the cuisine of various nationalities and popular restaurants, recently there has been a growing library of culinary tomes that give us the skills for producing creations of our own minds. Titles such as Sauces by James Peterson, the 1-2-3 series by Roxanne Gold, Culinary Artistry, Great Wine Made Simple, and now this book provide us with the information about tastes and combinations of flavors and textures to deconstruct, reconstruct, and just plain construct familiar and novel dishes. The Elements of Taste provides a brief introduction to the authors' theory of flavor. They broadly group flavors into four categories based on the purpose they serve in a dish. Thus, Tastes That Push represent the well-known seasonings that we use to balance sauces, for example: Salty, Sweet, and Picante. Tastes That Pull represent those taste elements that highlight underlying flavors. The authors include here Tangy, Vinted, Floral/Herbal, Spiced Aromatic, Funky (pungents or musky flavors), and Bulby (what have commonly been called Aromatics such as onions and garlic). Taste Platforms represent the textures upon which dishes are built. These include Garden Platforms, Starchy ones, Oceanic ones, and Meaty ones (what the Japanese call umami). Finally, the fourth category is Tastes That Punctuate, basically bitters that stop tastes and cleanse the palate. This model is very useful one. The authors seem not to have done their research in examining precursors to this model, and make little reference to other cuisines than the one they constructed for this book. They neglect to include several important items, especially in the Platforms section (breads, pastries, soy products, seitan, and mushrooms as a basis for other flavors, for example). There are similar, usually less complex models, already in the literature. Kunz and Kaminsky's model is more extensive than most, however. Surprisingly, they give little space in the book to theory. The majority of pages is devoted to recipes that demonstrate their combining philosophy. The authors do not describe how they took the elements of taste and mixed them to concoct these dishes. (A reader must refer to Culinary Artistry for such guidelines.) They do, however, provide tasting notes after each recipe that dissect the elements used in the dish. The recipes are very complex, involving multiple steps and sub-recipes. Even a cook enjoying kitchen challenges would be hard pressed to prepare a full meal using this book alone-- one would run out of burners and pans before the dishes were complete. For example, the Honey Glazed Celeriac involves making the glaze, which is a reduction of wine and acids with sauteed aromatics sieved and kept warm, plus Celeriac slices baked and then broiled, plus a garnish of sauteed zucchini with chives, plus Ginger Curry Sauce, a mayonnaise of reduced wine and aromatics whisked with other ingredients. The writing is an interesting, not entirely successful juxtaposition of aw-shucks, down-home attitude, sophisticated epicurean philosophy, and fancy foods. The recipes are heavy on the Meaty and Oceanic food platforms, making this definitely a carnivore's cookbook. Produce usually stands as garnish and accompaniment to the flesh. In the end, the most special part of the book represent a few precious pages and is underdeveloped. Perhaps a follow-up volume will expound on this interesting culinary model.
Rating:
Summary: Great Concept
Review: What a great time to be buying cookbooks! While we have for a long while had access to recipe collections and representations of the cuisine of various nationalities and popular restaurants, recently there has been a growing library of culinary tomes that give us the skills for producing creations of our own minds. Titles such as Sauces by James Peterson, the 1-2-3 series by Roxanne Gold, Culinary Artistry, Great Wine Made Simple, and now this book provide us with the information about tastes and combinations of flavors and textures to deconstruct, reconstruct, and just plain construct familiar and novel dishes. The Elements of Taste provides a brief introduction to the authors' theory of flavor. They broadly group flavors into four categories based on the purpose they serve in a dish. Thus, Tastes That Push represent the well-known seasonings that we use to balance sauces, for example: Salty, Sweet, and Picante. Tastes That Pull represent those taste elements that highlight underlying flavors. The authors include here Tangy, Vinted, Floral/Herbal, Spiced Aromatic, Funky (pungents or musky flavors), and Bulby (what have commonly been called Aromatics such as onions and garlic). Taste Platforms represent the textures upon which dishes are built. These include Garden Platforms, Starchy ones, Oceanic ones, and Meaty ones (what the Japanese call umami). Finally, the fourth category is Tastes That Punctuate, basically bitters that stop tastes and cleanse the palate. This model is very useful one. The authors seem not to have done their research in examining precursors to this model, and make little reference to other cuisines than the one they constructed for this book. They neglect to include several important items, especially in the Platforms section (breads, pastries, soy products, seitan, and mushrooms as a basis for other flavors, for example). There are similar, usually less complex models, already in the literature. Kunz and Kaminsky's model is more extensive than most, however. Surprisingly, they give little space in the book to theory. The majority of pages is devoted to recipes that demonstrate their combining philosophy. The authors do not describe how they took the elements of taste and mixed them to concoct these dishes. (A reader must refer to Culinary Artistry for such guidelines.) They do, however, provide tasting notes after each recipe that dissect the elements used in the dish. The recipes are very complex, involving multiple steps and sub-recipes. Even a cook enjoying kitchen challenges would be hard pressed to prepare a full meal using this book alone-- one would run out of burners and pans before the dishes were complete. For example, the Honey Glazed Celeriac involves making the glaze, which is a reduction of wine and acids with sauteed aromatics sieved and kept warm, plus Celeriac slices baked and then broiled, plus a garnish of sauteed zucchini with chives, plus Ginger Curry Sauce, a mayonnaise of reduced wine and aromatics whisked with other ingredients. The writing is an interesting, not entirely successful juxtaposition of aw-shucks, down-home attitude, sophisticated epicurean philosophy, and fancy foods. The recipes are heavy on the Meaty and Oceanic food platforms, making this definitely a carnivore's cookbook. Produce usually stands as garnish and accompaniment to the flesh. In the end, the most special part of the book represent a few precious pages and is underdeveloped. Perhaps a follow-up volume will expound on this interesting culinary model.
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